LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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PRESERVE THIS BOOK FOR YOUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN. 

Tjje {Sfonj of a Hundred Yea^, 



ffte • (Uerriforiaf . (Sjroaofip 



OF TIIK 



United * j&ateg * of * America 

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OF 

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY, 



Jufy . dfitR, . d7§7. 



By WILLIAM P. MOSS. 



WILLIAM P. MOSS, PUBLISHER, 
40 State St., Chicago. 

1887. 






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PRESERVE THIS BOOK FOR YOUR CIHLDREN'S CHILDREN. 



The Story of a Hundred Years, 



THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH 



United States of America 



SINCE THE ORGANIZATION 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY, 



JULY 13th, 1787. 



By WILLIAM P. MOSS. 



WILLIAM P. MOSS, PUBLISHER. 

40 State St., Chicago. 

1887. 

PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. 




B^ PLEASE READ NOTICE ON BACK OF COVER. .; 



From Century, February, 1887, page <>14: 
(Edw. Atkinson, on "The Relative Strength and Weakness of Nations." 

"It is a singular fact, that there appears to be no Historical School 
Atlas in use in this country in which the several additions to the ter- 
ritory of the United States are pictured and described; hence very few- 
persons realize the vast importance and extent of the Louisiana pur- 
chase," etc. 



Copyright, 1887, 
By WM. P. MOSS, 

CHICAGO. 

All Rights Reserved. 



■£ris 



PRESS OF 

Hack & Anderson, 
CHICAGO. 



OUR TERRITORIAL GROWTH IN 

ONE HUNDRED YEARS 

AND ITS CAUSES. 



One Hundred Years! How long a time it seems when 
we endeavor to think of it by itself. But when we take up 
the daily paper and read, as we frequently do, of persons who 
have gone beyond that period in life, and then think that one 
hundred years ago that old man or that old woman was a little 
child climbing on its father's knee, as your child did to-day, it 
brings that which in the abstract seemed so long a period down 
to our comprehension, and makes the one hundred years after 
all to be but comparatively a short space of time. 

It is just one hundred years since the Congress of the United 
States of America organized its first territory, " The Territory 
Northwest of the * Ohio Ri/ver." I will therefore start with that 
organization as the initial point of our National growth and 
show, as briefly as possible, not only its causes but its successive 
steps in the ten decades which are just closing. Every lover 
of his country should have, outlined in his mind, at least a 
general knowledge of its brief history; yet how few have 
even this. They are sure we had a Revolutionary War, 
and a War of 1812, and a Mexican War, and lately a Civil 



War between the North and the South; and they carry in 
their minds a few facts in relation to these several wars; but 
beyond these the great majority know simply nothing of our 
history. It is not so much the fault of the people as it is of 
those who have written our lesser Histories, which are the only 
ones coming into the hands of the generality of our people. 
The authors of these books have not recognized as fully as they 
should have done that History is a record of facts, with their 
causes, great and small, showing either the progress or the 
decay of nations. War is but a single expression of a pre- 
existing fact or facts, and not, as they seem to make it, the 
main fact of history. 

The historic Fact which I propose to examine with you, 
my friends, is our Territorial Growth in the century just clos- 
ing, together with its causes. Those who follow me closely 
will, I think, become interested in other great Facts of our 
marvelous history and so form a relish for their study. 



OUR ORIGINAL DOMAIN. 

(820,680 Square Miles.) 

In 1783, at the close of the Revolution, the United States 
were but thirteen in number, all lying on the Atlantic slope of 
the Continent.. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina and Georgia. Several of these States had had, Avhile 
English Colonies, claims more or less conflicting, under royal 
grants, to lands beyond their governmental boundaries. France 
also, by rights of discovery and partial occupation, claimed the 
whole of tlie valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers. 
Her claims extended north from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
Great Lakes, while those of the English Colonies extended 
from the Atlantic west over the same territory to the Pacific 
Ocean. A few years before our Revolution, in the year 1763, 
France, at the close of a bloody war, ceded to England all of 
her territory east of the midehannel of the Mississippi, from 
latitude 31° to the source of the river. In our treaty of L783 



with England, she ceded to us all this territory and defined our 
northern boundary as extending from the Mississippi to the 
northwest point of the Lake of the Woods, where it joined our 
boundary running east to the line separating Maine from New 
Brunswick. At the junction in the Lake of the Woods is a 
peninsula included in Minnesota, though jutting out from 
Manitoba, which belongs to us under this treaty. At the close 
of the Revolution our bounds therefore were as follows: From 
the Atlantic west to the mid-channel of the Mississippi, and 
from British America south to the Florida line at 31° of north 
latitude. 

WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE THIRTEEN STATES 

were what are now Maine, Vermont, District of Columbia, 
Kentucky and West Virginia. The District of Columbia was 
ceded in 179<) by Maryland to the United States for its seat of 
government: Maine had been since 1652 a District of Massa- 
chusetts; it became a State in 1820. Vermont had been claimed 
both by New Hampshire, and New York, but in 1777 it had 
asserted its independence and in 1791 became a State. Ken- 
tucky, a di strict of Virginia, arrived at statehood in 1792, 
while West Virginia, which had always been an integral part 
of Virginia, in 1863, during the late Civil War, became an 
independent State. 

OUR DOMAIN BEYOND THE LIMITS OF THE THIRTEEN STATES. 

At the close of the Revolution most of the States surrend- 
ered to the General Government their claims to the lands west 
of them. On the 13th day of July, 1787, the celebrated Ordi- 
nance passed Congress, organizing 

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 

This was several months before the adoption of the Consti- 
tution, and nearly two years before the inauguration of our first 
President, George Washington. The Northwest Territory 
covered what is now Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wis- 
consin and that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River, 
and was nearly one third of our whole domain. By provis- 
ions of this ordinance?, not less than three nor more than five 
States, whose boundaries were specified, were to be made from 
this Territory, and slavery was to he forever excluded from them. 

If you will take a United States map of the present time, 



6 

and extend with a pencil the east boundary line of Illinois and 
that of Indiana north till they touch the boundary line in Lake 
Superior separating the United States from Canada, you will 
then see what ground Ohio, Indiana and Illinois would each 
have covered had there been but three States formed out of the 
Northwest Territory. Now draw a line due east and west from 
the south end of Lake Michigan across these three States, and 
you will see what territory would have been left north of this 
line for the formation of one or two other States. If there had 
been but the three States, then St. Paul and Milwaukee as 
well as Chicago would have added to the wealth and fame of 
Illinois; and Detroit as well as Cincinnati to that of Ohio. 
The moving of this east and west line farther north in the case 
of Illinois, and the subsequent making of the St, Croix river a 
part of the boundary between Wisconsin and Minnesota, took 
both St. Paul and Chicago out of what became Wisconsin, and 
also gave to Minnesota its frontage on Lake Superior. That 
east and west line would have left Illinois and Indiana with- 
out a lake front, and would have given but little to Ohio, 
for what is known as the "Western Reserve," lying alon<* 
Lake Erie, with the parallel of 41° as its south boundary, and 
extending 120 miles west from the Pennsylvania line, was still 
held by Connecticut under its old charter claim, and it was not 
till 1800 that she surrendered its jurisdiction to the United 
States. To give these States lake privileges it was necessary 
to do what was done when they were severally admitted to the 
Union; the line Avas moved farther north. 

These proposed divisions show how ignorant our fathers 
were of the vast wilderness which had so lately fallen into their 
possession. But little surveying had been done in the west, 
and the maps were mere guesses made from the rude draw-^ 
ings of voyagews and adventurers. Compare our old map in 
latitude and longitude, position of rivers, lakes, etc., with the 
maps of to-day, and this ignorance will be plainly seen. On 
still older maps the Missisippi river is represented as rising 
far to the northwest of where it really does. In the treaty of 
17s:i, by which England ceded to us her claims to our country, 
the boundary line was to run "Due west from the most north- 
western point of the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi 
river." If the river had been where they supposed it to be, the 
city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, would be very near to the Min- 
nesota line. 

Let me here refer to the wonderful growth in population 



of u The Northwest Territory" in the one hundred years just 
closing. What better illustration can bo given than St. Paul, 
the youngest of her great eities, which to-day has eight to ten 
times the population the whole Territory had at its organization. 
Yet at that time, and for several decades after, the vast region 
around St. Paul was almost a terra incognita* I will give 
still another evidence of the wonderful growth of population in 
this Territory in the past hundred years. Three years after 
the organization of the Territory, the population of the whole 
United States, by the census of 1790, was but 3,929,526. 
Seven years ago. by the census of 1880, the population within 
the limits of the old Northwest Territory alone (leaving out 
that portion in Minnesota) was 11,207,501. Add to this the 
probable increase in the last seven years, and the probable pop- 
ulation of the Minnesota section, and I think I am safe in saying 
that in this centennial year there are three and one-half times 
the number of inhabitants within the bounds of the old Terri- 
tory that were in the whole United States when, on the loth day 
of July, 1787, the Northwest Territory was organized. If from 
a few thousands in the short space of one hundred years the 
population has grown to so many millions, what will it become 
by the close of another century \ Or who can tell how many of 
her even now great eities will then number their inhabitants by 
the million? 

THE SOUTHWEST AND MISSISSIPPI TERRITORIES. 

In 1790 North Carolina ceded her claim to the country 
w T cst of her as far as the Mississippi river, and it was organized 
as "The Territory Southwest of the Ohio River." In 1796 it 
became the State of Tennessee. Georgia claimed the country 
west of her to the Mississippi, but the General Government did 
not admit the claim, at least to the southern part, and in 1798 
organized that as the Mississippi Territory. Its south bound- 
ary was latitude 31°, which separated it from West Florida, and 
its north boundary a line drawn from the Mississippi at the 
mouth of the Yazoo river east to the Chattahooche river. 
This line started from where is now Vicksburg, and crossed 
about where is Montgomery, Alabama, The United States 

* In 1887 the larger cities of -'The Northwest Territory," Cincinnati, 
Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and St. Paul, individually 
exceed in population the census returns for 1790 of several of the individ- 
ual States; while Chicago equals even Virginia, which was then the 
most populous of them all. 



claimed that up to the Yazoo line the country had been a part 
of West Florida, and that it had been ceded by France to Eng- 
land with other territory in 1763, and by that Government to 
ours in 1TS3, and so never had been included in Georgia. In 
1800 Georgia surrendered all her claims Avest of the Chatta- 
hooche river, and the Mississippi Territory was extended north 
to the Tennessee line. In 1817 the State of Mississippi was 
formed from the western part of this Territory, and the eastern 
part became Alabama Territory, which in 1819 was admitted 
as a State. 



HOW OUR DOMAIN WAS ENLARGED, 



FIRST ENLARGEMENT, THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 

(930,928 Square Miles.) 
In the year 1803, by the payment of $15,000,000, we unex- 
pectedly secured from France her Province of Louisiana, This 
region had originally belonged to France, but in the year 
1763 she had ceded it to Spain, who in 1800 by a secret treaty 
had retroceded it to France, though the latter Government did 
not actually take possession of it till she turned it over to 
us. This act took place at New Orleans, and was so inter- 
esting that I think you will pardon me for stopping briefly to 
allude to it. The preliminary arrangements had been going on 
for several days, and on the 20th day of December, 1803, the 
formal surrender by the French was made. At sunrise the 
French flag was raised to the summit of the flag staff in the 
public square, indicating that France was now in possession of 
the Province. At noon the United States Commissioners at the 
head of the American troops entered the city and received from 
the French authorities the keys of the city, emblematic of the 
formal delivery of Louisiana to the United States. Soon after 
the tri-colored flag of France slowly descended, meeting the 
rising flag of the' United States at' half mast. After a few 
moments pause the French flag descended to the ground, and 
the American flag rose to the top of the flag stall" amid the roar 
of artillery, the blare of martial music and the vociferous cheer- 
ing of the American people. A very full account of this inter- 



9 m 

esting ceremony can be found in Spencer's United States, Vol. 
3, pages 44-5. 

I stated above that we had imexpectedly secured this 
Province. The way was as follows: We had difficulty with 
the Spanish authorities at New Orleans; for they had re- 
peatedly violated our treaty rights and had closed the outlet 
of the river to us. We were on the point of forcing our way 
through to the Gulf of Mexico by an act of war, when better 
counsel prevailed, and President Jefferson appointed Robert 
R. Livingston, our Minister to France, and James Monroe 
Commissioners to negotiate with France for the purchase of 
the island and city of New Orleans, that Ave might have an un- 
interrupted outlet through our own territory, by the Mississippi 
river, to the Gulf of Mexico. When they made their mission 
known, Napoleon offered them the whole Province. Finding 
he was in earnest, and not as they first supposed merely ban- 
tering, they negotiated a treaty which was speedily accepted by 
our Government, and the whole Louisiana Province passed 
into our possession. The reason why Napoleon made us this 
splendid offer was doubtless because he was preparing to make 
war on England and needed the money, and he knew if Loui- 
siana were not transferred to us, England with her ships of war 
would have quickly taken New Oreans and controlled the whole 
Province. 

This purchase carried our western boundary from the mid- 
channel of the Mississippi river to the water-shed of the Rocky 
Mountains, and gave into our possession the whole valley of 
the Mississippi and its branches. This Province included what 
is now Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota (west 
of the river), Dakota, Montana (larger part), Wyoming (larger 
part), Colorado (in part), Nebraska, Kansas (except southw r est 
corner), and the Indian Territory (except the Pan Handle), 
with what are now the great cities of New Orleans, St. Louis, 
Kansas City, Denver, Omaha and Minneapolis. 

This purchase not only gave our western people a free 
outlet to the sea and the markets of the world, but it removed 
from our whole western border a foreign and warlike power. 
The rapid increase in population which immediately followed, 
showed the wisdom of this immense and costly purchase on the 
part of our young and impoverished Nation. When we look 
at this vast tract, which at the time of its cession to us had but 
80,000 inhabitants, more than half of whom were slaves, peopled 
as it is now by millions of happy people, and capable of sup- 



10 

porting millions upon millions more, we cannot but recognize 
the guiding hand of that good Providence which made; it pos- 
sible for us to obtain it, in a manner so strange and unexpected 
to us. 

SECOND ENLARGEMENT, THE FLORIDA PURCHASE. 

(59,720 Square Miles.) 

In the year 1821, after a negotiation of about two years, the 
Spanish Government ratified a treaty with the United States 
by which, for the sum of $5,000,000, the Floridas were ceded to 
us. The country east of the Appalachicola river had been 
known as East Florida, and that west of it as West Florida. 
The latter country originally belonged to France and at various 
times was in her possession, but at other times in that of 
Spain. As the country contained neither gold nor silver it 
was considered almost valueless, and the rights of neither 
country were very clearly defined or understood. 

In 1763 Spain ceded both Floridas to England, who in 1783 
ceded them back to Spain. The western portion beyond the 
Perdido river, which now separates Florida, on the west, from 
Alabama, had been claimed by France as belonging to Louisi- 
ana, and our Government, a few years after its purchase of that 
Province, claimed and took possession of it, and so brought our 
boundary line down, west of the Perdido, to the Gulf of 
Mexico. This act of ours over a disputed territory came near 
bringing on a war with Spain. By this treaty of 1S21 we 
obtained all of Florida, and all claims of Spain along the Gulf 
of Mexico to the river Sabine, separating Texas from what is now 
Louisiana, and at the same time we surrendered to Spain what- 
ever claims we had under the Louisiana Purchase to territory 
between the Sabine and the Rio Grande river, now the State 
of Texas. Texas at this time was a part of Mexico and with 
it belonged to Spain. The boundary line between the United 
States and the Spanish Provinces, as settled by this treaty, com- 
menced at the mouth of the Sabine river, thence up that stream 
to latitude 32°, thence due north to the Red river, thence fol- 
lowing that stream to longitude 100°, thence due north to the 
Arkansas river, thence to its source in the Rocky Mountains, 
thence north to the 42°, and thence on that parallel to the 
Pacific Ocean. We ceded to Spain all our claims west and 
south of this boundary, and Spain to us all her claims east and 
north of it, We surrendered enough of our Louisiana purchase, 
lying in the Valley of the Mississippi, to have made a Stale as 



11 

Large as Colorado. This is easily seen by tracing a line along 
the water-shed south of the Red river, thence to a few miles 
east of Santa Fe, and thence along the Rocky Mountains to 
the 42 nd parallel. But as we got from Spain her claim to the 
Oregon country, we were not the losers by the exchange. 

THIRD ENLARGEMENT, DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF OREGON. 

(280,425 Square Miles.) 
Our right to the country on the Pacific Coast, from Cali- 
fornia north to the British line, rests on the following claims: 
A Spanish vessel in 1592 discovered and sailed along the coast. 
As shown above, this claim was made over to us by Spain, 
it lying north of latitude 42°. In 1792 Captain Robert Gray, 
of Boston, Massachusetts, an American citizen, discovered and 
sailed up a large river, which from the name of his vessel he 
called "The Columbia." William Cullen Bryant, in his im- 
mortal poem, " Thanatopsis " (written in 1812), refers to this 
then far off river under its other name "The Orcgon. ,, 

"Or lose thyself in the continuous woods' 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings." 

In 1801-6 Lewis and Clarke, in charge of an exploring 
expedition sent out by the United Stales Government, ascended 
the Missouri river nearly to its source, thence passed over the 
Rocky Mountains and down the Columbia river and its branches 
to the Pacific Ocean, whence they returned to the Missouri 
river and home. Almost the whole distance over which they 
journeyed, after leaving the Mississippi river, was an unknown 
wilderness. On their route they met tribes of Indians who 
never before had seen a white man. In 1811, as narrated by 
Washington Irving in his "Astoria,' 1 John Jacob Astor, a 
merchant of New York City, sent one expedition overland and 
another by sea to the mouth of the Columbia river, where they 
established the fur trading post of Astoria, which was the first 
settlement in this vast region. 

You will remember that at the time of our treaty with 
England, in 1788, we had no possessions west of the Lake of the 
Woods and the Mississippi river, and consequently no boundary 
line in that direction; but by the Washington or Ashburton 
treaty of 1842 the line of 49 degrees, from the Lake of the 
Woods west to the Rocky Mountains, was made an extension 
of our boundary, thus defining for the first time the northern 
limit of the Louisiana purchase. As the Oregon country 



was yet in dispute, this boundary was not extended to the Pacific 
Ocean. Our claim ran along the coast north from California 
to 54° 40', where we touched the Russian Possessions, now 
Alaska Territory. 

The English had as valid claims, and of the same charac- 
ter as ours, which would have taken in all of Oregon and prob- 
ably California had they pressed them, but they only claimed 
to the mouth of the Columbia river. I have before me a map, 
dated 1777, attached to Robertson's America, in which the 
country north of the Peninsula of California is named "New 
Albion," and the Bay of San Francisco, the "Harbor of Sir 
Francis Drake," the bold English navigator, who, in 1578, had 
discovered and sailed into it. 

After a good deal of blustering on our part and on the 
part of England, we both, in 1846, showed our good sense by 
dividing the country between us, on the line of 49 degrees, from 
the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Thus through these 
various sources we became possessed of what is now Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, the western portion of Montana, and a 
part of Wyoming. 

FOURTH ENLARGEMENT, TEXAS AND OUR MEXICAN PUIKTIASKS. 

(924,260 Square Miles.) 

Texas had for several years been tilling up with emigrants 
from the United States. Difficulties sprang up between them 
and the Mexican Government, resulting in their seceding from 
Mexico in L835, and setting up an independent republic, which 
in 1845 applied for admission and was annexed to the United 
States. As Mexico still claimed Texas as a part of her 
territory, this act on our part led to a war between us and 
Mexico. At its close, in 1848, we purchased of Mexico, for 
$15,000,000, what is now the State of California and nearly all 
that other portion of Mexico lying north of the present bound- 
ary between the two republics, and extending from the Pacific 
Ocean to Texas, and including what claims she might have to 
that State. In 1854 we bought an additional strip of land 
(that south of the Gila river in Arizona) for $10,000,000, 
which brought our southern boundary line to where it now is. 

This whole purchase, besides California and Texas, includes 
Nevada, Arizona, Utah, a part of Wyoming, a large part of 
Colorado, New Mexico, the southwest corner of Kansas, and the 
Pan Handle of Indian Territory. In order to get at the real 



cost of this purchase, we must further add that of an unnec- 
essary war, in blood, suffering, and treasure, and to that what 
we paid to Texas, in 1850, for her visionary claim to a large 
portion of New Mexico, $10,000,000. It is asserted that we 
sacrificed the lives of more than 25,000 of our own people and 
paid from $130,000,000 to $150,000,000 from our treasury. 
It is true we kept Texas, but as she hud reserved to herself every 
acre of public land in her territory, we have had nothing from 
her to reimburse us for what she cost us. 

FIFTH ENLARGEMENT, THE ALASKA PURCHASE. 

(577,390 Square Miles.) 

In 1867 we purchased from Russia the vast region along 
the North Pacific, and extending to the Arctic Ocean, now the 
Territory of Alaska. For this we paid $7,200,000. It is 
claimed that our receipts from the leasing of the right to kill 
seals on the Alaska islands has fully paid the interest on this 
large amount. Alaska has also cod and salmon fisheries, seem- 
ingly, inexhaustible; and vast forests of cedar, fir and kindred 
trees; and doubtless great mineral wealth in her mountains. 
These, even if she never becomes an agricultural state, will draw 
thousands of hardy, enterprising people into her territory, and 
will justify a purchase, the wisdom of which at the time was so 
seriously doubted. 

Thus by discovery, by annexation, but chiefly by purchase, 
has the United States in so short a period of time covered with 
her territory so large a portion of North America, and through 
the immense population she has drawn hither taken her place 
in the very front rank of the nations of the earth. 

In concluding our Historical Sketch it will be of interest 
to every American citizen to trace out 

THE CAUSES OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF POPULATION 

which made safe and possible these repeated enlargements of 
our domain. When in 1803 the United States Minister to 
France, Robert R. Livingston, was, in connection with James 
Monroe, negotiating for the purchase of Louisiana, he wrote that 
u the United States will not for one hundred years make any 
settlements west of the Mississippi river." Let us look for a 
moment, and see if he was not fully justified at the time in his 
strange assertion. 



14 

In 1803 not one of the States was densely populated, 
though the settlement of some of them dated back nearly 200 
years. Very large portions of several of the larger States, 
notably New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, were still vast 
solitudes. Three States had recently been formed in the Valley 
of the Mississippi, viz: Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, and 
it was a very reasonable supposition that it would require at 
least one half of the century to till up these new States in " Th 
Far WesV 

South of Tennessee to Florida, and northwest of Ken- 
tucky and Ohio, stretching hundreds of miles to the distant 
British line, there was nearly an unbroken wilderness. Deiw 
woodlands, the abode of countless wild beasts, and vast 
prairies, over which roamed immense herds of buffalo, and 
quiet rivers, bearing on their smooth surface the light canoe of 
the treacherous savage, and anon the flat-boat of the hardy 
pioneer as he floated the scant produce of his few tilled acres 
to the distant market. AYith all of these difficulties to over- 
come on the east side of the Alississippi, it is no wonder that 
so wise a man as Chancellor Livingston should write, eighty- 
four years ago, "The United States will not for one hundred 
years make any settlement west of the Alississippi.** But what 
a change the eighty-four years have wrought! Did the world 
ever before, in so brief a time, see so marvellous a change? 
"Truth is stranger than Fiction,'* and the tongue which in the 
Orient told the wonderful Tales of the Arabian Nights is 
silenced by that which tells of the stirring deeds and the won- 
derful transformations of these eighty-four years of our Western 
History. The wolves and the bears, the elk and the buffalo, 
and the dreaded red men, have all disappeared. The fiat-boat 
and the canoe served their purposes and are gone. The mighty 
forests, tree by tree, were felled long ago by the woodman's 
axe, and forest and prairie land for years have yielded rich 
harvests to feed the hungry peoples of the Old World. Where 
were the rude villages of the Indians, now are towns and cities 
and great business marts. And over all the then "waste, 
howling wilderness," prevails to-day the highest type of Christ- 
ian civilization, and all of these things have happened since 
that venerable, white-haired friend of yours was an infant. 

But it is not on the east side of the river only that these 
wonderful changes have been going on, for long years ago the 
same tide of population, carrying the same civilization, crossed 
the Mississippi river, and has been ever since sweeping on 



15 

toward the west, wave following wave in quick succession. It 
reached the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase, crossed 
the mountains, rolled down their rugged passes into the valleys 
on the sunset slope of the continent, and paused not till it 
touched the shores of the far-oil' Pacific. Before the hundred 
years shall have expired, of which Mr. Livingston wrote, 
even distant Alaska, from present indications, will be dotted 
with churches and school houses and tens of thousands of happy 
homes. In these successive purchases of immense territory 
our statesmen have planned better than they knew, for they 
were but instruments in the hands of the All-Father, who was 
preparing the way for the rapid establishment of a Land of 
Refuge and of Plenty for his oppressed children, of all the 
nations of the earth. 

THERE WEEE MANY THINGS WORKING IN HARMONY 

which made possible this rapid increase of population in the 
new territories. I will mention first our form of Government, 
which, as Lincoln so grandly said, is "Of the People, by the 
People and for the People." This has had a peculiar attraction 
to the thinking men of what are called the lower classes of 
European society. The thought, that their children could at 
little or no expense be well educated, and might even reach the 
highest positions in the land, has been an incentive to thousands 
of poor people to sunder home ties and brave the dangers of 
sea and wilderness. The temperate climate if our land, the 
fertility of its soil, uml latterly the nisi/ access to its markets, 
hut beyond these the wise policy our Government 1ms pursued 
in disposing of its wide domain, have all had their influence 
in drawing hither myriads of people from the "Old World." 
Land, from the organization of the Government, has been sys- 
tematically and rapidly surveyed, and, through the larger por- 
tion of the time, sold in small parcels at a very low figure, so 
that the very poorest man could buy at as cheap a rate his 
fort}" acres, as the rich proprietor could his square miles of 
land. Then came the new departure under the Homestead 
Law, giving 100 acres to every actual settler on the Public 
Lands. I am a little disposed to question, however, the wisdom 
of the later laws by which beside his Homestead farm he could 
obtain at a trifling cost from 160 to 320 acres more. While 
this has been of benefit financially to many thousands of people, 
far more, who might have obtained a Homestead, will be pre- 



Hi 

wntcd, because very soon all the good farming lands held by 
the Government will be gone. 

In the main the Railroad Grants have been of very great 
benefit to the country, inducing the building of railroads 
through the wilderness and making possible its rapid settle- 
ment. This will be readily seen by comparing the Western 
maps of but thirty years ago with those of to-day. When, 
in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was made, there were neither 
steamboats nor railroads known. The immigrants of those 
days moved, as we occasionally see them now, in covered 
wagons, wife and children and household goods inside of each, 
while the men folks led or drove their few cattle along behind. 
Thus they traveled hundreds of miles from their comfortable 
Eastern homes, climbing the rough mountains and following 
down their valleys, and with axe in hand often hewing paths 
through the tangled woodlands. In this manner, after many 
weary weeks, they reached what was to be the home or the 
grave of them and their household, in some drear forest. This 
had then to be felled, tree by tree, to make a log house for a 
home, and to let the sunlight reach the ground where, between 
the stumps, they were to plow and to plant. One can readily 
sec how slowly a distant land would till up when the only 
mode of reaching it was by the emigrant wagon. 

The first step in 

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 

was when, in 1806, Congress appropriated money to build 
National Roads, making it easier for the immigrants to move 
over the mountains and "through the forests with their heavily 
laden wagons. In 180T Robert Fulton, after many discourage- 
ments and much ridicule, succeeded in making the first practi- 
cable Steamboat, "The Clermont." With this he went from 
New York City to Albany and back at the rate of five miles 
per hour. He afterward wrote: "The morning I left New 
York there Were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who 
believed the boat would ever move one mile an hour." In 1812 
he, in connection with Mr. Livingston, built "The Orleans," at 
Pittsburg, Pa., which was the first steamboat on the Western 
waters. In 1818 the first lake steamer, "Walk-in-the-Water," 
ran regularly through Lake Erie to Detroit and back to Buffalo, 
and steamboats were rapidly increasing in number on both 
Eastern and Western rivers. But it was not till 1838 that 
steamships were perfected so as to be depended on for ocean 



it 

navigation, and even when the first one was successfully cross- 
ing from England to New York City, a celebrated Old-World 
scientist, Rev. Dr. Lardner, was lecturing and proving con- 
clusively that such a voyage was a scientific impossibility. 

While improvements in steam navigation had been going 
on, and boats were plying to and fro on the lakes and rivers of 
the West, the Nationaland some of the State Governments 
were trying to solve the problem of connecting the Western 
waters with the seaboard by Canals. Governor DcWitt Clin- 
ton, of New York, after years of hard work, amid unceasing 
ridicule, had the pleasure, in 1825, of seeing the waters of Lake 
Erie mingling with those of the Hudson river through the Erie 
Canal. This was three hundred and sixty-three miles in length , 
built largely through a wilderness. When completed it was 
hailed as a great success, and well it might be, for it soon made 
New Y r ork City the commercial emporium of the country. If 
you pass over the New York Central Railroad in the summer 
season you will see the boats, on this old canal, moving at a 
snail-like pace through the green fields, while you are whirling 
along at :'><> miles per hour, and you will wonder how your 
grandfather ever thought canaling a rapid mode of travel. 
The wits of the day had, as they thought, a good time .in ridi- 
culing Fulton and Clinton, but they and their witticisms are 
both forgotten, while these truly great men have been immor- 
talized as benefactors of their race, and their grateful country- 
men have given the honored names of Fulton and Clinton to 
towns and cities as well as to streets and avenues. 

The next and greatest advance step was the employment of 
Steam for land travel and traffic. The primary object of this 
was to shorten the time between the navigable waters of the 
East and the navigable waters of the West, and to do away in 
a measure with the necessity for canals. But with the settle- 
ment of the country, the railroads were extended from city to 
city, irrespective of their situation on navigable waters, till 
the railroad has not only largely superseded the canal, but in 
many parts of the country it now successfully competes with 
the river in the carriage even of heavy freight. In the "New 
Countries 1 ' the railroad worked a complete revolution by chang- 
ing the current of traffic and travel, for the natural outlet of the 
whole Mississippi valley from the Alleghany to the Rocky 
Mountains was by the way of New Orleans to the Gulf of 
Mexico. Down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers one would in 
those early days meet a constant succession of flat-boats and 



is 

steamboats bearing to that distant market the produce of the 
West. After the eompletion of the Erie Canal in New York 
State, canals were built in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, connect- 
ing the navigable waters of the Mississippi Valley with the 
Great Lakes, the Erie Canal and the Hudson River. A canal 
was also built by which Philadelphia, with a portage over the 
mountains, reached the Ohio river at Pittsburg, and so shared 
in the trade which otherwise would all lane gone to New 
Orleans. This system of canaling was not only slower but 
more expensive than the old method of simply floating down 
stream, for it necessitated several changes, with the rehandling 
of freight each time. But when the railroads came, they rem- 
edied all this. 

A railroad is virtually a navigable river, having its many 
branches, navigable to their very source, eachpowing its stream 
of trade mto the main river, which bears it on and on till it 
reaches the distant seaport. To-day, from the Atlantic west 
across the Mississippi valley to the Pacific, there are many of 
these railroads, over which flows constantly to and fro, in 
snnnner and in winter, an ever increasing stream of travel and of 
traffic. The first Railroad Company organized in America was 
the Baltimore and Ohio, which was chartered by the Maryland 
legislature in 1827. The cars at first were moved by horse 
power, but in 1829, Peter Cooper, of New York City, so well 
known in later years as a philanthropist, built for this company 
the first locomotive made in America; it moved at the rate of 
eighteen miles in an hour. In L830 there were but 23 miles of 
railroad in the. United States; on January 1, 1887, there were 
about 135,000 miles. 

The successful invention oftht Steamship in L838 opened 
a new era in ocean navigation. The voyage was very much 
shortened in time, and the vessels were made so large that on 
each trip they carried several hundred passengers. As emi- 
grants could be herded by hundreds in the steerage, the vessel 
owners were enabled to make very low rates for passage, and 
in consequence, ever since, there has been an unceasing exodus 
from European ports to this country. 

In the meantime railroads were being built in every direc- 
tion through our western country, often scores and hundreds 
of miles in advance of population. Several of these railroad 
companies owned millions of acres of fertile lands, the gift of 
the Government to them. These roads had special agents 
throughout Europe, as did several of the Western States, who 



19 

were constantly circulating printed information in the various 
languages of Europe and collecting and forwarding colonics as 
well as individuals and families to this country. As soon as 
they arrived at our seaports the railroad companies forwarded 
them at very low rates to their chosen homes in the Far West. 
To-day the immigrant can be brought from Europe and set 
down in the Western Territories, in less time and with not a 
tithe of the hardships a New England family endured, in coming 
from its Eastern home to the Northwest Territory at the lie- 
ginning of this century. 

These have been the main causes which have made possi- 
ble our rapid increase in population and territory in so short a 
time. The same causes are still operating in Europe and 
America, while our railroads in the aggregate are adding hun- 
dreds of miles each year to their already great extent, and open- 
ing up for settlement new sections of the country. One is 
bewildered when he attempts to forecast the future of our 
nation from such a past! Yet, if no great catastrophe over- 
takes our land, it is a mathematical certainty that by the time 
of the Second Centennial of the Organization of the "North- 
west Territory," there will be within the present limits of the 
United States of America.'// least 350,000,000 of people or quite 
as many as are now in all of Europe. If with in the m xt twenty- 
jive years there are no fwrther enlargements of ov/r domain, 
every awe of public land willhaveoem disposed of ? , <<n<l in < ven 
<i shorter time the Land Grant Railroads will have sold every 
acre they received from Government. Before the expiration of 
the century, farms will have been divided and redivided among 
families, till eighty acres will be considered a large farm and 
every acre of arable land will be carefully tilled. 

The United States will then lead in agricultural, manufac- 
turing, commercial and mining industries, and will have become 
the financial center of the whole business world. By her 
grand system of common school education, enforced by com- 
pulsory laws, every native born person, of sound mind, will have 
at least a rudimentary education; and her leading colleges will 
have become the great universities of the world, each num- 
bering its students by the thousand. Her interior and coast- 
Avise cities, east and west, north and south, which are railway 
terminal points, will have increased in population far beyond the 
most sanguine expectation of their present inhabitants. And 
where, in addition to their advantages as receiving and distrib- 
uting centers, they have become great manufacturing points, 



20 

they will embrace, within their corporate limits, more square 
miles of actually improved territory, holding larger populations, 
than any cities of ancient or modern times. 

If you have not given this matter a serious thought I have 
no doubt you will think me very visionary. Hut if a century 
ago any one had predicted the wonderful changes which we 
now see to have taken place, would he not with much more 
reason have been charged with being visionary? Take all the 
conditions of the country as I have described them; then re- 
member that ours is a country capable of supporting an im- 
mense population; and that railroad facilities for reaching 
cheaply and quickly every part of the land arc yearly increasing. 
Weigh tin's, things well. Then look at our marvellous growth 
in the past century, when, through a large portion of the time, 
the conditions were not nearly so favorable for growth as now. 
In 1787 our whole population was only about 3,750,000, in 
ls^7 our estimated population is 60,000,000, so we have 
doubled just four times in one hundred years, averaging once 
in every twenty-five year-. Our last census was in 1880. 
Our population then was 50,155,783; thirty years before, in 
L850, it was but 23,191,074. If we could double four times in 
this century (which of course is impossible) our population in 
L98T would be 960,000,000. So I think you will consider me 
quite moderate when I predict 350,000,000 for our population 
■within our present territorial limit- in 1987. Doubtless before 
that time, by friendly and mutually advantageous legislation, 
we will have acquired the whole continent from the Isthmus 
of Panama to the Arctic Ocean, and all the various peoples 
Mill speak the one language, live under the one Hag. and be a 
part of that one Government which is "Of the People, by the 
People, and for the People." 

Perchance you to-day have held in your arms a child who 
will live to see these predictions all fulfilled. 

Chicago, dauuarw 1887. 



THIS BOOK IS PRESENTED TO YOU, WITH THE 
COMPLIMENTS OF 

jWILLIAM p. moss, 

40 State St., Chicago. 



In addition, to the valuable literary matter in this Book, I have two 
maps in preparation, one from Carey's Atlas of the United States, pub- 
lished in 1801, showing our country as it then was; and one, made 
expressly to illustrate this Book, showing the successive Enlargements 
of our Domain, etc Unavoidable delays have prevented my getting the 
maps ready for this sample edition. 

To the thoughtful advertiser, who reads it carefully, I think this Book 
will recommend itself, as peculiarly valuable, as an advertising medium, 

FOR IT WILL REACH FAMILIES: 

and, as the matter it contains is of great interest, especially at this time, 
to every lover of his country, and cannot be found in any other one 
book, it will not find its way, as so much advertising matter does, into 
the waste basket, but will be read, talked about, and preserved fur its 
intrinsic value. The maps will be in one color, and will measure, 
without the margins, 10 x 13 and 7i x 12A. 



PRICES, INCLUDING MAPS, 

and advertising on pages two, three and four of Cover. 

In orders of 5,000, or more, each Book, - - 2£ cents. 

In orders of 10,000, or more, each Book, - - 2± " 

In orders of '25,000, or more, each Book, - - 2 

Terms: Net Cash. 



1 can add four extra pages of advertising, if desired, at very low 
figures. 



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tllllltaiii,,^l NGR ^s 



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